Creating New Cooperatives

New Cooperative Formation

GSPC has worked with the other types of cooperatives in California and Nevada, including agricultural cooperatives like Sunkist, food cooperatives, housing cooperatives, and credit unions. We worked with these groups to see if the benefits of organizing in cooperatives could bring down the cost of power for rural, residential, small commercial, or other types of customers that have historically been charged high electricity costs. This also allowed us to see how well our power agency has been doing in buying power for us.

Golden State Power Cooperative was created to join forces of the existing distribution cooperatives with associate members and to assist with emerging energy cooperatives in California. GSPC is a united effort to protect cooperative interests in state and federal political arenas, and to assist in collaborative efforts to create new types of functional cooperatives to serve new niches in the energy industry.

After deregulation of the electric industry failed in California, many of the unique aggregation cooperatives in California were disbanded. However, many cooperative models to access renewable energy in California, such as Cooperative Community Energy, have been successful. We also work closely with the California Center for Cooperative Development to promote cooperative development.